Mississippi River Fishing. Lots of pictures!

[huntinherrrington]

I do alot of catfishing on the Mississippi River and its oxbows. Here are a few pictures of my catches. No store bought fish for me or my family!

 

[huntinherrrington]

Re: Mississippi River Catfishing

Yes, that is the truck bed full of fish (Buffalo fish).

 

[huntinherrrington]

Re: Mississippi River Catfishing

Ran out of 150qt ice chests so started filling the drink cooler in on pic!

The bream are for trotline and limb line bait.

One ice chest is full of white bass. Fun to catch when they are schooling.

 

[huntinherrrington]

Re: Mississippi River Catfishing

My small boat (16'x44") loaded down with slat traps.

 

[huntinherrrington]

Re: Mississippi River Catfishing

My custom built 16' long x 60" bottom, all 3/16" aluminum with double bottom.

 

[huntinherrrington]

Re: Mississippi River Catfishing

Outside camp pictures

 

[huntinherrrington]

Re: Mississippi River Catfishing

Pictures of the outside of the camp

 

[Barrelnut]

I'm in awe! Looks like every species of catfish in the river is there? How do slat traps work and what are you catching in them? Are you selling some to local restaurants?

 

[huntinherrrington]

I'm in awe! Looks like every species of catfish in the river is there? How do slat traps work and what are you catching in them? Are you selling some to local restaurants?

I'll try to dig up some good pictures of the slat traps or i will take pictures when i get home ( 1 1/2 weeks). Mine are 15" square x 48" long. They have fingered slats that will open as the fish swims through and closes.

Slat traps are wooden boxes for catfish. I fish then in NON current areas such as lakes, oxbows and my favorite flooded timber.

I just bait them with rotten cheese (the drum in the back of my truck is 200lbs of the worst smelling cheese you can imagine!) and fish them on the bottom. Either tie the rope to a tree, limb, or putting a float on it.

Just go back daily and pull it up. Take the top off, dump the fish out, and rebait.

Now since wood floats you have to fish them 2 ways.
1) Tie weights to them such as pieces of metal or old bench press weight, ect. This allows them to sink. After a couple days they will become water logged and the weights can be removed. This makes it difficult because with the weights, weight of trap, and fish it can be quite the chore to run 20 of them!

2) Have a spot that you can weight them and have them soaking for several day prior to fishing them that way once you start fishing them they are water logged and sink on their own.

P.S. The wife hates it when she looks in the pool and it is full of traps soaking!!

I have started straying away from slat traps as they are heavy and weight a boat down. I use concrete reinforced wire traps now for NON current fishing. They are like a hoop net but don't collapse.

I sell to individuals and donate to churches for wild game supper and such events.

 

[huntinherrrington]

Me making a net from scratch. Started with a spool of twine!

Me patching a net

 

[huntinherrrington]

Loaded down with 35 hoop nets and anchors.

 

[huntinherrrington]

Inside pictures of my camp. Everything is cypress except the floors.

 

[huntinherrrington]

And the last of them. It's not much. Just a one bedroom camp but is setup really nice for what i do. It's located in North East Louisiana and my property borders the Tensas National Wildlife Refuge which provides great whitetail deer every year. Also about 10 miles from the Mississippi River with a dozen of other hunting and fishing paradises in the general area. It's a sportsman paradise for anyone living in my part of the country.

I work 14 days on and 14 days off on a deepwater oil and gas platform 120 miles in the Gulf of Mexico. When i'm home, I load up the family (Wife, 4yr old, & 2yr old girls) and we enjoy the great outdoors as much as possible.

 

[Win.308Stealth]

I hope you have a good woman to help clean all that fish!!!